


up in flames we go, you fire breather

by GlitterPoisonedMyBlood



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, I kind of like it, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Not a Happy Story, Self-Harm, i keep writing sad stuff, skyeward shippers may not like this, takes place between seasons 1 and season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 06:24:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6693055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterPoisonedMyBlood/pseuds/GlitterPoisonedMyBlood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant Ward hurts those that he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	up in flames we go, you fire breather

**Author's Note:**

> Angst. Not fluffy at all. Self-harm. You have been warned.

**Grant Ward hurts those that he loves.**

He doesn’t mean to, honestly. It just happens. He holds on so tight – and then. Then it all disappears before his eyes.

He loves so fiercely, so deeply. It’s too much. It’s more than enough. It’s too much more than enough.

He loved his mother – even when he struggled to stand under the weight of her anger. He hugged her when she hit him and kissed her when she yelled.

He loved Buddy once. But he couldn’t hold on because –

Well he loved Garrett too.

And then he loved Skye. So beautiful and bright, so shiny, and innocent.

She was a breath of fresh air that he needed when his lungs were toxic.

So he holds on tight, too tight, he guesses because she claws to get away from his grasp.

He doesn’t understand.

Doesn’t she know?

He loves her, and from what he understands love is an exchange.

She has to love him back. That’s how it works.

Doesn’t she know that he loves her?

Doesn’t she know?

 

**Grant Ward betrays those that he loves.**

Well, really just Skye.

He’s a super secret spy – so he lies to her.

And he can’t help but think he learned that lesson early. He learned from the lies his parents told him.

And he thinks maybe he’s just like his brother. Maybe he’s like Christian. Because he’s a liar.

Family is poison, he knows. They fuck everything up.

The team was her family. But Skye doesn’t need a family. They could ruin it all.

She only needs him.

So he breaks the family up. They’re unnecessary, he thinks. She doesn’t really need them, he thinks. He didn’t need a family and she didn’t either. But he wants one. God does he want one. And Skye wants one too. But-

She has him. Does she really need anything else?

He doesn’t need anything but her and she won’t need anything but him.

He’s enough to make her happy. Just enough. And she must agree, he thinks, because she’s flirting.

God she keeps flirting. So, he flirts back. A smile here. A touch there.

She’s a beautiful woman, and he has eyes.

And he sees her for just what she is. She is the sun. He can’t look straight at her, because while she warms his heart with his light, he’s cold. He’s selfish. He’s a liar.

But she still smiles at him - blindly bright.

And he thinks - she’s accepted him. She’ll forgive him when she knows what he did. When she finds out all the ways he hurt her - he’ll patch her up. There won’t even be a bruise.

She’ll forgive him because she loves him. His redemption, he knows, is through her.

 

**Grant Ward disappoints those that he loves _._**

He used to give his mother flowers. She loved flowers.

Hydrangeas, roses, peonies, daisies.

And then she would strangle those flowers in her hands, wringing the life from them just like she wrung the life from him.

His mother didn’t give a shit about him.

He can see it in her eyes.

But he sees something different in Skye’s eyes.

It’s hate, he thinks. It has to be.

When she turns him in to the police he knows.

It’s the last piece to the puzzle. Because she was being so - It was perfect.

And nothing that is perfect is real. His mother taught him that.

Perfection doesn’t exist. Happiness is fleeting. It isn’t real.

Someone like him doesn’t deserve to be happy.

He knows then and there that anything he saw in her eyes is gone.

All he sees is his own failures and his own mistakes.

He trusted the wrong person. He trusted John.

He should have trusted Skye.

With her flannel shirts, and her upbeat attitude, and her unwavering loyalty to the team -

Her deep smiles, and wide eyes -

He should have trusted Skye.

 

**Grant Ward makes those who love him hate him.**

They all hate him.

He loved them all in a different way, but it wasn’t enough because they all hate him.

Fitz. Fitz reminds him of Thomas and God- Simmons _is_ Rose. His little sister.

The only light in his life before he met Skye came from Tommy and Rose.

Tommy and Rose who have avoided him for fifteen years. Tommy and Rose who changed their names and their numbers.

And Coulson is a good man.

He doesn’t know the real world, but he’s a good man.

He’s nice. He’s too nice. He’s doesn’t understand, but he’s good.

He’s just good.

But when Ward comes into his sight - there’s only pain. He’s not good to Ward. Because Ward isn’t good.

May is - he doesn’t know. Who is May? What is May?

She’s the goddamn Calvary.

She’s an ice queen wearing a mask without emotion.

She’s the smoking gun that does the dirty work.

She’s not good. She’s Melinda May.

And he fucked her in the worst way possible. She could kill him.

She could literally kill him.

Melinda May _wants him dead_.

 

**Grant Ward loves Skye.**

But Skye. Fucking Skye.

That’s the most painful. Because he thought that what they had was right.

He thought that what they was true. But he lied, and killed, and goddamn.

It was never true.

But it was real. He felt it. And in the beginning, he knows that she felt it too.

But Skye loves - _loved_ \- a different man than the one in Vault D.

But he still loves the same Skye.

The Skye who said “bang bang” when she shot a gun.

The Skye who loved sandwiches and pancakes.

The Skye who accidentally called Coulson dad but owned it without embarrassment.

The Skye who he held in his arms as she bled out.

But that Skye doesn’t exist anymore.

He killed that Skye when he joined Hydra.

She’s hollow now. Angry. Hateful.

Maybe that Skye never existed at all.

Because he broke her. He broke her in ways that he didn’t know was possible.

He took away the one thing she wanted - a family.

He broke _their_ family.

And as Grant Ward lays on the moth-eaten mattress, he thinks that if he folds the paper in just the right way-

And he does.


End file.
